Springsteen & The Seeger Sessions Band – UK Tour Nov 2006

It seems like not so long ago I was writing about the Bruce Springsteen onslaught around as I followed the Seeger Sessions band around London and Manchester. Well this time around I limited myself to only a couple of shows – taking the train up to Birmingham to see the group at their first UK stop at the NEC Arena, and also taking in the London show at Wembley Arena a couple of nights later.

I had great VIP standing tickets for the Birmingham show on November 9^th so I was really close to the action. The first thing that struck me was how great the band are now playing together – they’ve really grown in stature since the initial UK shows back in May. To be fair, at the time I saw those initial shows the band had performed together less than 10 times so it was natural they were still finding their way a little. Still I was unprepared for how much better and together they’d sound as a group and they’ve certainly surpassed simply playing the album live and trying to recreate the spontaneity of the ‘We Shall Overcome’ record.

You knew you were in for a treat with all shows kicking off with a barely recognizable reworking of Springsteen’s debut single “Blinded By The Light’. Re-cast a zydeco jig – the song was unrecognizable until Springsteen started spitted out those busy rhyming couplets.

The spiritual arrangement of “Further On (Up the Road)” from ‘The Rising’ was unexpected – and made great use of the backing vocalists and guitarist Frank Bruno all trading lead vocals for part of the verse (in a similar way to the E Street band arrangement of “If I Should Fall Behind” on the re-union tour). “Bobby Jean” was great to hear – but again not easy to recognize as a violin-led up-tempo arrangement that was possibly a little too reminiscent of “I Want You” by Bob Dylan.

“The Ghost of Tom Joad” was similar in tempo to the recorded version – however completely recast as a duet with guitarist Frank Bruno, who’s sweet country lilt (which in a non-ironic totally good way) reminds me of John Denver’s country/pop voice.

“How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live?” remains the center-piece of the show – and now it’s officially released on the ‘American Land’ re-issue of ‘We Shall Overcome’ the crowd really get behind it as well.

It was great to hear Bruce tackling some of his most recent material in Seeger Sessions big-band arrangements and while “Jesus Was an Only Son” probably lost some of it’s emotional punch, “Long Time Comin'” was revelatory with the fuller instrumentation behind it.

E-Street band guitarist Nils Lofgrin – currently touring solo around the UK – made a guest appearance on guitar and vocals in Birmingham for a set closing “Pay Me My Money Down” – and it was great to see the pair return to the stage as a duo with acoustic guitars to offer a small reprise of the song after the full band had been led offstage.

“This Little Light of Mine” - a new spiritual cover in the vein of “Jacob’s Ladder” was well received in the encore, before the traditional show closer “American Land” was played – however clearly enjoying being back on tour after a week long break (Springsteen joked earlier that he has teenage kids now so when he returns home he goes from band leader to chauffer and short-order cook very quickly) and led the band into an impromptu “Froggy Went A Courtin’” to close a brilliant show.

Saturday night’s Wembley show quickly mixed things up with a great version of “Atlantic City”. “Growin’ Up” was dedicated as “an old song for the young fans” and the arrangement was incredible different to any previous version. One of my highlights of the night was a great version of “Devils and Dust” that starts acoustically with the band slowly coming in with subtle organ and backing vocals.

The start of the encore was a clear highlight for me. Springsteen explained he’d seen Lucinda Williams play last night (see my entry on this show) and was impressed that she played a lot of new material so he thought he’d try out “a work in progress”. He joked that between his ''boozing and whoring'' he's been writing a bit in his hotel room and this is a song written about what's been happening in the USA and while there's some hope after last Tuesday's elections, there’s still a lot of work to do. “Gonna Be A Long Walk Home” is a ballad in the style of “If I Should Fall Behind” with a lot of references to his hometown of Freehold, plus there was a couple of lines “borrowed” from the old country gospel tune “Rank Strangers (To Me)” – “When I looked in their faces / I found they were all Rank strangers to me”.

Sunday’s Wembley included a few treats with the ‘Greetings From Asbury Park’ double-shot of opener “Blinded By The Light” followed by a tour debut of “Does This Bus Stop at 82^nd Street?”. It was also great to hear the Seeger Sessions Band version’s of “The River”. An almost solo-acoustic “Land Of Hope and Dreams” opened the encore – and the show-closer was an unusual cover of "Man on the Flying Trapeze”.

One observation as Bruce closed the show and thanked the crowd and the band for coming on “this journey” was there seemed to be a touch of finality to it – so I’d suggest after the remaining four shows, the Seeger Sessions may be coming to an end. Still – after six shows and a guest spot in less than 12 months – I’ve seen plenty of it. I was also pleased to see so many new arrangements of older songs. For me some of the re-arrangments of older songs have been a little novelty - but I think the versions of "Devils & Dust", "Long Time Comin" and "My City of Ruins" could well be considered the definitive versions of those songs.

Lucinda Williams - Shepherd's Bush Empire

Just came back from a great Lucinda Williams show at The Shepherds Bush Empire and I'm ecstatic to report Bruce made a guest appearance for a couple of songs.

Shortly after arriving at the show I noticed Frank Bruno the guitarist, Charles Giordano accordion/keyboards and backing vocalist Curtis King from Springsteen's current Seeger Sessions band in the bar. I’d just returned from the Birmingham show on the train in the morning - so I congratulated the guys on last night's show and told them how much I thought the Seeger Sessions band had gained in stature since the initial UK shows earlier in the year. They were very gracious about me approaching them, and Frank quickly asked what I thought of the new arrangement of "Blinded By The Light". I told him I liked it, and it took me a few lines to register what song they were actually playing. I mentioned how I thought they were playing a cover of Bob Dylan's "I Want You" when they started the new arrangement of "Bobby Jean" - and Charles said that's what he bases his performance on. I also congratulated Frank on the duet arrangement of "Ghost Of Tom Joad", explaining I thought his sweet country lilt brought a new musical color to the song, and he seemed genuinely flattered. Although I might have over done it when I compared his voice to John Denver – in a really good way - but they were still polite.

As you can imagine I was going home pretty happy at this point – meeting some of the Seeger sessions band, and finally seeing Lucinda Williams in concert. To put things in context - this was the third attempt at this Lucinda Williams London show (the tickets were originally for a July 2005 show, later re-scheduled to Dec 2005, and then re-scheduled again to 11 Nov 2006) so there was already an air of anticipation in the crowd.

Kicking off with “Ventura”, Lucinda and her three-piece band played a great set of material that was very heavy on her more recent albums ‘Car Wheels on A Gravel Road’, ‘Essence’ and ‘World Without Tears’. Highlights included “Right In Time”, “Essense” and “2 Kool 2 B 4-gotten”; together with new material “Where is My Love?”, “Rescue” and the show-closing title track from her Feb 2007 due ‘West’ album.

Towards the end of the main set Lucinda nervously announced a special guest, and that performing with him would be one of the highlights of her career. She then welcomed to the stage "Mr Bruce Springsteen", to which the capacity 2,000 person crowd erupted. Bruce was pretty low key – wearing a dark shirt and jeans, he didn't talk to the crowd or take to the mic at all, but strapped on one of guitarist Doug Pettibone’s extra guitars, an orange/red Gibson, and took a spot in the far stage-left corner behind bass player Paul Bryan.

He played some rhythm guitar and a couple of solos on their bluesy cover of Lil' Son Jackson's “Disgusted” - covered by Lucinda on her 1979 'Ramblin' debut album. It didn’t seem as though he knew the song because Lucinda appeared to demonstrate the basic chords as he took the guitar. It was great to hear Bruce playing the electric guitar again and he seemed to really enjoy letting rip some blues riffing.

Surprisingly, after the song was finished Bruce stayed onstage and Lucinda announced they'd close the set with "Joy" (from her awesome 'Car Wheels On A Gravel Road' album). In her introduction to the song Lucinda talked about making sure you don’t let the government or anyone take your joy. This prompted her to announce how they were celebrating a victory in the recent US election - which got a great cheer from the crowd and Bruce pumped his fist in encouragement.

Bruce clearly knew ‘Joy’ well and really let rip with a face-melter of a solo and even played some very distinctive subtle strumming during the songs quieter breakdown sections. Lucinda introduced all the members of her band - Doug Pettibone on guitar, Paul Bryan on bass, and Don Heffington on drums - and they each took a short solo, before she introduced "Bruce 'the boss' Springsteen" again and he took another great solo. They stretched the song out into something like 10 minutes, before finishing the song, and the main set.

Lucinda and the band returned for a single encore, "West" the title track of her new album which she announced is due for release in Feb 2007 - but despite it being a fantastic song, it was kind of an anti-climax after a guest appearance from Bruce.